Breadcrumbs

Mala Mawkin

So this term I have been extremely lucky to have been doing Surgery at Ealing. It really is a fantastic hospital to work at. Thankfully even though it is quite far away, it is a straight bus from my house in Brook Green to Ealing Hospital- I LOVE the 607.

I was working on colorectal surgery at Ealing for 5 weeks- it was so gross but so interesting. I saw some surgeries during my attachment that honestly my stomach was not prepared to see, and I can normally cope! For example, the first surgery when my scrubs got tarnished with faecal material I really did reconsider my career path.

In Year 3 you spend 3 x 10 week attachments at hospitals. I was at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital the last 10 weeks and I had such a fantastic time. I learnt a lot but also overcame a lot of anxiety!

Starting clinical placements was really tricky for me. I thought as a talkative happy person I would really enjoy being on the wards for the first proper time as a medical student. However, my first day was a disaster. I had my stethoscope round my neck and my medical student badge on, and I walked confidently up to my ward.

We are well into the final course of 2nd year, Science and the Patient!

Science and the patient is actually really interesting as it is the transition course from pre-medical into 3rd year on firms. It means we are learning a lot more about diseases and less about the nitty gritty bits of cells and drugs etc.

This year TBL has been introduced and I wanted to talk about it a bit. I think it is amazing, and one of the best learning tools the faculty of medicine have introduced. Why? Because it actually takes into account what medical students are and utilises it to teach us something.

We just completed 3 out of our 4 second year exams (last one is end of June). Pushing through to get to the end required so much stamina. Don’t get me wrong, I have done exams before and have been used to the stress of exams however these exams were something different to what I had experienced before. It was just so much volume, SO MUCH VOLUME.

To summarise what we needed to revise over easter once lectures had finished:

Anatomy– Head, Neck, Spine, Upper Limbs, Lower Limbs.

Neuroscience– Covered so much from brain anatomy to what controls us being conscious to how we balance.

Here at Imperial we have a massive student representation through all our constituent unions. It is amazing that students can get involved in such council meetings and discussion groups with faculty and union. It actually makes me feel a lot more at peace that I could go to the President (or any other members) of Imperial School of Medicine Union (ICSMSU) if I have a query or concern about my time at Imperial studying medicine.

At this moment in time the count for voting population of Imperial is 24%, with less than 3 days to go. It is a massive shame that there aren’t a lot more people standing for positons though…would make it a teeny bit more democratic!

I was chatting with my friends about PBL today and it got me thinking about the different views I had on PBL before I came to ICSM and how its changed.

PBL is Problem Based Learning. At Imperial I have been taught in this way for one of my modules (funnily enough the module is called…PBL). It is basically a 2-3 hour session every 2 weeks in which you meet up with your extended tutor group of 10 people and a tutor and go through a case.

For example:

In the first session we all read through the case below and talk about it…

“Mrs Iron has come to A & E with a swollen red hand after doing some domestic jobs.

So I have spent the final few weeks of term at Chelsea and Westminster hospital completing my first clinical attachment at med school.

The purpose of the 3 weeks was to talk to patients, learn how to take histories and get a feel for what will happen in the clinical years. We also had 2 sessions with a GP which was really useful and interesting.

On the first day, I was up bright and early at 6:30am to have a long shower, do my hair and WALK to the hospital. I was bursting with enthusiasm. We had ward round at 8:15am and our firm group decided we would meet by our lockers (yeah how cool we got lockers!) at 8am.

I really was not one of those people that “wanted to study medicine since I was 2 years old and had a toy doctors set from my parents”. In fact, I wanted to be a librarian/café owner/ hotel owner for the early years. As I grew older (not taller), I managed to build up a giant selection of teddies. These were soon to become my unexpected patients. My teddies and dolls went though the most horrific traumas and it was my absolute joy to care for them. Granted, the traumas were normally part of some sort of crazy game me and my siblings would play: for example one time there was a “fire” in the bedroom and we had to “evacuate” all the teddies.

So freshers came to a close and I jetted of to France for my birthday weekend at 7am after beach bop. We had hired out a castle in rural France all to ourselves…it was amazing! Then came back to London and back to reality. There is just so much content this year and it is a mission trying to stay on top of it all already…ahh!

We have done a bit of pharmacology, neuro, endo, haem and ANATOMY! I reaaaaally love anatomy this year. We are currently doing anatomy of head which is so interesting (mostly because you get to examine human brains..).